


Was There Ever Any Other Choice?

by 0mniessence



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Comedy, Compilation, F/F, Prompt Fic, Romance, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-02 16:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13322109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0mniessence/pseuds/0mniessence
Summary: Latest Chapter's Story:Beca glared at the phone number scripted on her skin.She'd never seriously considered giving it a call.Now, as she's running late to her first day at her music internship, the universe is clearly saying, "hold my beer," as it sets the pieces into motion.Soulmate AU where you are born with the first words your soulmate will say to you tattoed on your skin.





	1. A Lotto Think About

**Author's Note:**

> This story will be a collection of Soulmate AU one-shots
> 
> I accept prompts so leave some in the comments if there is something you would like to see.

Over the years, Beca grew to find it annoying every time someone caught a glimpse of her tattoo and cooed at the fateful words.

So, she had a date, time, and location—big whoop.

It could be for a job interview.

Entertainment event.

Business transaction.

Work function.

Murder.

.

.

.

Or an actual _date_ date—which, honestly, by the verbiage, is the most distasteful yet most likely of possibilities considering this would be the first words her supposed soulmate would say to her.

Everyone else thinks the words are endearing, but to Beca, they just sound downright creepy and clingy.

_I swear to God, I will declare the universe’s soulmate algorithm seriously jacked if I get paired up with some hopelessly condescending sap._

//

Looking at the tattoo, she sometimes wondered what type of setting would prompt her soulmate to say these words to her.

The words were too straight-forward, too knowing, for complete strangers to say to each other.

She wondered which one of them would speak first. Does she say something prior to or following the tattooed words?

//

Beca first looked up the meeting location when she was ten years old, out of sheer curiosity, but found that it didn’t exist.

It wasn’t until she checked back in when she was fifteen years old that she found the place had finally been established.

It was one of the world’s most classy, upscale, and expensive venues, the only one of its kind, and located in New York.

_So… my soulmate is some filthy rich snob._

She scowled, thinking about her future educational and artistic ambitions.

_A future college girl should make good use of a sugar daddy, I guess._

//

Beca figured her soulmate was some lawyer-, doctor-, engineer-type character if they could afford an exorbitantly prized venue such as the one dictated on her forearm.

But, after arriving at college and understanding more about the salaries of such professions, she figured it was impossible even for them to afford such a place unless it was a one-off.

This meant her soulmate must be a very important figure in society. Maybe a high-profile CEO, celebrity, or politician.

Beca didn’t care much for the whole soulmate deal, but even she had to admit to herself that the prospect of meeting such an elite individual was somewhat intimidating.

As an incoming broke college freshman with nothing but plans and aspirations to her name, how could she hold her own against her soulmate, who was probably an older, wiser, and more financially-savvy individual?

She didn’t want to be regarded as inferior by them. She would not settle for an unequal relationship where the power dynamic was tilted in her soulmate’s favor. Her pride wouldn’t allow it.

//

It was at this moment, with only a year to go before she met her soulmate, that brilliance struck her.

If her idea worked, she wouldn’t even need her soulmate to facilitate the achievement of her life goals.

//

It was a risky bet.

If this idea worked, she would have a say in who her soulmate would be, even if she still wouldn’t know what kind of person she would pick.

She watched the Powerball prize sum grow and grow until, one month before the meeting her soulmate, a sole winner was announced for the second largest payout in U.S. lottery history.

$1.6 billion.

She went on her laptop in her dorm and looked up the winning lotto numbers.

After she settled on the first words she would say to her soulmate, she laughed hard enough to make her stomach hurt as she came upon a realization.

Her Asian roommate looked at her, disturbed by her behavior.

It didn’t matter to Beca.

She now knew which one of them would speak first.

//

Beca learned through the news outlets that the lottery winner chose to remain anonymous.

She figured this explained her tattoo.

//

On the dictated date, a month after the lottery winner was announced, she made her way to the venue.

She was meant to meet her soulmate in New York.

Broke as she was, though, she used a combination of credit cards, student loan personal expense allowances, and her own meager savings to book herself a flight and hotel to New York.

She really hoped her plan worked because otherwise she would be in some… debt shit.

//

She used some of this money to buy herself a passably classy outfit to attend the venue. She didn’t want to look like a street rat and stand out against the backdrop of wealthy patrons that would surely be in attendance.

She had no idea how she was supposed to know who her soulmate is, though, to know whom to direct her words to.

Trial and error was an embarrassing method to finding a soulmate.

She entered the venue building on to find it deserted.

There was literally nobody inside.

 _What. The. Fuck_? Beca thinks to herself in confused fury, eyes darting around the place and seeing all the tables empty. _Did I just get stood up?_

The horrifying possibility that her soulmate was a crooked thief that instead elected to keep the lotto winnings all to themselves crossed her mind.

Beca _had_ accounted for this possibly happening. Her only insurance was that soulmates were inescapably bound to meet one another.

So, thief or not, she would run into this asshole at some point her life, blackmail them for her respective half of the money if she had to.

She couldn’t very well sue them… since they would then **both** get thrown in jail for rigging the lottery.

 _They can’t dodge me forever,_ Beca thought darkly with an annoyed scowl.

“Good evening, Madame, we were expecting you,” a lady, apparently a hostess, greeted Beca, announcing her presence and startling the mousy girl.

“Whoa! I-I wasn’t expecting you,” Beca exclaimed in surprise, willing her heart to calm down with a hand placed on her chest.

“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, Madame,” the hostess jokes pleasantly. “May I please see your invitation?”

“Uh…”

“On your forearm, I believe?” the hostess clarified, eyeing the aforementioned limb.

“Oh! Right. Okay. Yeah, sure,” Beca immediately recovered, showing her forearm to the hostess.

The hostess took out a towel from her fancy apron—pre-wetted with some blue liquid—and rubbed at Beca’s forearm.

Once she confirmed Beca’s tattoo to be genuine, she smiled cordially.

“Allow me to show you to your seat,” the hostess then said genially.

Beca nodded and murmured a “thanks” to the hostess as the lady led her through the many empty tables and chairs in the restaurant before arriving at a balcony, where they find another girl to already be seated, staring out at the lit backdrop of the city through the view.

“Miss, your guest has arrived,” the hostess announced. “I shall return in a moment to take your order.”

With this, the hostess left Beca and the redheaded girl alone.

 _Wait, is this really…?_ Beca thought appraisingly as the girl turned her head and beamed at her with a welcoming smile and a friendly wave. _Only one way to know…_

“I need you to buy two leeks, fifteen onions, twenty-three tomatoes, eleven wings, eight power batteries, and a dozen ping pong balls for the January 6th, 2017 office pool party.”

Beca raised an eyebrow expectantly once she’s done.

The redhead’s smile widened noticeably.

“Looking to share with you, my Treasure, a priceless night, on February 6th, 2017, at Angello’s Premier Italian Dining, 7:30 p.m.”

“Ugh, it IS you! Come up with something more gag-worthy, why don’t you?” Beca accused disgruntledly.

“What? I thought it was cute and clever! LOoking TO SHARE WITH YOU, MY TREASURE, a PRICEless night?” the ginger-haired with the sky-blue eyes argued, mildly ruffled.

“The priceLESS made me think you were mocking me because the entire restaurant was empty and I thought you ditched me! Leaving me…prize-less… basically, having me think you ran off with the money,” Beca divulged grumpily, looking insecure, arms crossed huffily.

“What? No, of course not, I wouldn’t do that! I just didn’t know how else to incorporate the word ‘prize’ in the sentence to give you a hint!” Chloe defended, looking concerned at having made a bad first impression.

 “So that was your idea of giving me a clue?” Beca asked skeptically with a flat tone.

“Well, it gave you a Chloe, so whatever the case, it worked,” the girl explained with a charming shrug.

Beca stared blankly.

“That’s my name,” Chloe elaborated with an unimpressed expression. “Thanks for asking.”

“Oh, right, every love story begins with…. Who the hell is this?” Beca cynically narrated, rolling her eyes.

Chloe’s eyes glinted mischievously. “So this is the start of a love story, is it?”

Beca’s eyes widened comically. “W-what? No. I just… meant… with the soulmate… and the connotations… how—bleh, that’s beside the point. The point is…. I’m Beca, sorry for opening with such a crabby attitude, I’m not usually—actually, yeah, I am, but I tend to hide it better. Meeting you just has me kinda… frazzled.”

“It’s okay,” Chloe said kindly, sympathizing smile on display. “I may not look it right now, but I’m also very excited to be here with you”—she had the whole crazy-eyed shebang deal going on, she definitely looked it—“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for … well, since my parents read me what you would first say to me… they thought you were super bossy, by the way, and that your grocery list was weird. They actually thought you WERE going to be my boss, and were concerned I would get caught up in some sordid corporate affair of sorts. Thanks to you, my parents low-key think there’s a foxy vixen hiding underneath my church choir college girl exterior.”

“Church choir?” Beca inquired, tilting her head.

“I do Acapella, now, actually,” Chloe expanded cheerfully.

“Aca-what?”

“Aca- _mazing_! You’re catching on to the lingo already!?” Chloe squealed enthusiastically. “No wonder we’re soulmates.”

Beca shook her head. “Alright, let me stop you right there, Soul Sister…”

_“… ain’t that Mr. Mister on the radio, the stereo, the way you move ain’t fair you—"_

“No. Dude. What? What are you doing? What is happening right now?” Beca questioned, a little freaked out at Chloe suddenly breaking out into song.

“Sorry, riff-off habits,” Chloe apologized, not looking contrite at all. “Hard to shake…. _Shake your booty, shake your booty, uh-huh, uh-huh, sh—”_

“Shake it off, man,” Beca pleaded, looking weirded out. “Just… stop.”

Chloe went glossy-eyed at Beca’s swoon-worthy interruption, clasping her hands together. “You would be so good at this. You just keep on proving we’re meant to be. I could totally picture us singing in a shower together, the acoustics…”

“Why are you like this?” Beca lamented to herself in a whisper, looking down at her feet. She was sort of wishing her soulmate HAD BEEN some rich, old fart. Chloe was cuter but a lot creepier, too, because Beca can’t have nice things, apparently.

“OH! Sorry, I just realized I’ve been really rude. Would you like to take a seat, please? I rented the whole place out for us tonight so that you wouldn’t have to search through a crowd of people in the restaurant in order to find me,” Chloe explained, gesturing to the seat in front of her. “All that lottery money really came in handy, by the way, good thinking.”

Beca suddenly reverted to her senses and remembered why she even came to meet this girl in the first place. She took a seat.

“Right. The lottery money. So it _was_ you that won the lottery then? You were able to decode my words on your tattoo?” Beca questioned intently, knowing that a lot of her plans were now riding on the hope that her soulmate had been smart enough to figure out she had been giving her winning lottery numbers.

“I did, eventually, yes,” Chloe assured. “It took me a while to figure out why you couldn’t just straight up tell me these were the winning numbers, but I realized that anyone that would ever read my tattoo would then know the winning numbers, too, and we would have ended up having to split the lottery ticket.”

 _Not to mention, doing something like this is probably illegal, but I won’t mention that_ , Beca thinks discreetly.

“That is… if we didn’t get sent to jail first. Doing something like this is illegal, so I figured you didn’t want us to be exposed,” Chloe stated casually.

 _Leave it up to my soulmate to voice what I’m thinking,_ Beca thinks dejectedly.

“Which had me wondering, by the way, what kind of morally questionable person you would turn out to be. You know, using your soulmate to win the lottery and all,” Chloe continued neutrally, resting her elbows on the table and gazing critically at Beca’s face. “I bought the ticket just in case. I wanted to confirm how much truth there was to my tattoo. We should be glad lottery winners aren’t asked to show their tattoos. That would have thrown a wrench to your plans, huh? I had to go through an attorney, just to ensure that I would remain anonymous. You really threw me for a loop there, Beca, having me become a sudden billionaire for you. Would you not have wanted me if I had stayed of middle class status? How long have you been planning this… scheme, exactly, and why do you need the money so badly?”

Chloe’s hard-hitting line of questioning was posed in a civil manner, but the accusatory weight behind her words could not be ignored. Beca had wrongfully judged Chloe to be some airheaded college girl, but she could see that the girl had given serious lucubration as to what her soulmate’s intentions, possibly criminal, could have been.

“Um, it’s, uh, really not what you think, Chloe,” Beca placated, sympathizing with the feelings of inadequacy the redhead was most likely feeling. “I didn’t think about winning the lottery or getting rich or anything like that when I first read your tattoo. It named a luxurious restaurant, actually, so at first, I thought my soulmate was someone that was totally loaded. I felt like… someone poor like me wouldn’t be worthy of them. Not to mention… I didn’t want the rich person in the relationship to have all this influence over my decisions just because our soul bond might result in them becoming the benefactor to my education and career dreams. I just wanted equal footing between us, y’know? So I thought, if I could win us the lottery, then I did my part in contributing financially to our relationship. As soon as I thought of the idea, though, I cracked up because… I think… the reason my soulmate WAS rich is because I was the one that made them rich in the first place, by telling them the winning lottery numbers.”

Chloe chuckled demurely. “Weird paradoxes, am I right? Yes, that’s true, I’m not inherently wealthy. I’ve only been well-off for about a month, as a result of the lottery winnings.”

“I promise you, Chloe,” Beca said with earnest eyes, reaching for the girl’s hand even though physical contact was not really her thing; she felt that Chloe deserved at least that from her for all the heartache she caused her. “I only thought of this plan, like, a year ago. Before that, I had no idea what my first words to you would be. I was just going to let fate run its course and have us run into each and say whatever trivial thing comes to mind, like every other average soulmate couple does.”

“I believe you…” Chloe said, sounding satisfied and sending a sheepish grin Beca’s way, squeezing Beca’s hand affectionately.

Beca smiled in relief. “You know… you didn’t have to buy that lottery ticket if you didn’t want to. I wouldn’t have minded if we lost the money. You seem like a cool person. We would have gotten along either way.”

Chloe smiled uncertainly, bringing her other hand to clasp Beca’s in order to play anxiously with her fingers. “I thought about it… Up until a year ago, I still thought you were going to be an older supervisor or something asking me to go run an errand at the grocery store. When I figured out they were lottery numbers, though… I didn’t want to think the worst of you. That you only wanted to meet me for the money. I was mad at you for a while. I debated not buying the ticket just to spite you… and spite the universe, too, really, for giving me someone that was apparently so selfish and greedy.”

“… But you did, anyway… why?” Beca prompted gently.

Chloe gazed at Beca with glassy eyes. “Because… I’ve lived with your words tattooed on me for over two decades now… the stupid romanticist in me didn’t want to let you go. I was afraid, y’know? That if I didn’t buy the ticket, I would blow my chances of ever meeting you. I know that I look very cheerful and outgoing, but I don’t actually have very many close friends. Knowing that my soulmate was out there… it was comforting, especially as the date drew closer.”

Beca’s cheeks heated in both shame and shyness. She was surprised to hear about Chloe’s eagerness to meet her, while Beca had been dreading the moment her entire life.

“Sorry I made you feel that way,” Beca apologized, embarrassed for her actions.

“It’s fine. It’s in the past. Or, should I say, the present? This is our reality now, after all. Anyway, after I collected the lottery money, I gave myself a month to try and figure out how to deal with the finances. I also took that month to try and figure out whether or not I wanted to meet you. I knew that since I decided to go anonymous, you would have no idea who I was. Basically, it was up to me to find you, by coming up with the right words to say to you once we met. I went back and forth over a month, and I finally decided three days ago that I would meet you. So, I thought of a date, time, and location, and planned the words I would first say to you when I saw you. I told the restaurant’s hostess to check for those words once you came into the building, just to make sure you weren’t a fraud. Being rich is hard, y’know? So many people show up pretending to be your long-lost relatives, or companies and charities ask you to donate to their causes and pitch you project ideas… it’s very tiring. That was part of the reason I chose to go anonymous. I wanted to minimize those issues as best as I could, even if I wouldn’t be able to completely hide my wealth. I wanted to ensure my soulmate WAS my soulmate before meeting them. It was also another reason I waited for you to speak first. So that, even if by some weird trick you faked my words on your tattoo, I would have a second insurance of verification.”

“Oh, wow, sorry for all the stress I caused… I didn’t think too much about what an inconvenience winning the lottery would be,” Beca apologized sincerely. “I guess I completely disregarded the administrative aspects of it.”

“It’s fine. We’re both here now. And I see that you’re a good person,” Chloe spoke honestly.

“But, hey, teamwork wasn’t too shabby, huh? For only being allowed to say one sentence to each other for, like, 19 years,” Beca opinioned humorously, trying to break the tense atmosphere.

Chloe grinned. “That’s very true. We literally only had one-line of communication. So… you’re 19?”

Beca nodded. “I am. You?”

“22. Are you in college, as well, then? Where do you go to school?”

Beca scratched the back of her head. “I’m coming from Georgia, actually. I go to Barden University.”

“SHUT UP, NO WAY!”

Beca was taken aback.

“I GO TO BARDEN, TOO! How have we never seen each other? Oh! You’re a freshman! I’m a senior. Wow. What a crazy coincidence! Well, actually, no, never mind—soulmates—of _course_ we would end up at the same school!” Chloe gushed happily.

“Wait, so if you also live in Georgia, why did you have me come all the way to New York just to meet you at this restaurant!” asked Beca, scandalized, knowing how much money she could’ve saved.

“I wanted to make it hard on you,” Chloe confessed sheepishly.

Beca’s eye twitched.

“I-I mean, I wanted to make you work for it … to make sure that you wanted me, your soulmate, not just the money, you know? I figured, if you only cared about the material things, you wouldn’t jump through all the hoops of taking a plane, a day off school or work, dress up for an expensive restaurant, book a hotel, and all just to come and meet some soulmate, even if they did have money. Of course, there was also the risk that you WOULD be the kind of person that would sacrifice everything just for the money and make their way over to meet me, so I kept that possibility open, too.”

_That is what happened, but I’m not about to say that out loud._

“You just said that out loud,” Chloe said with a furrowed brow.

“Oh, God,” Beca said in mortification, facepalming. “You’re really in my head.”

“You’re okay. I know you better now. I know you weren’t exactly thrilled about the soulmate thing, but I know you didn’t just want the money for completely selfish reasons. Also, I have security cameras and guards around this place just in case you did turn out to be a shady person that wanted to harm me. But you didn’t. So you don’t have to worry about a grand body slam heading your way any time soon.”

Beca stared in silent terror at the bright redhead, feeling a sense of respect for her after having underestimated her bravado.

Beca cleared her throat a bit nervously.

“So, uh, whatever happened to the money? I hope you’re not spending it on frivolously extravagant things like renting out an entire building just to have a blind date with a girl you don’t even know.”

“I knew she would be special, though,” Chloe countered with a smile. “I think she was well worth the expense.”

Beca snorted, somewhat flattered, somewhat embarrassed. “You’re making me sound like some call girl.”

Chloe grinned. “Well, I called”—she pointed at Beca’s tattoo—“and you came.”

Beca shot her a joking glare.

Chloe chuckled.

“But, yes, about the money. I took the lump sum payout. We ended up with about $898 million after taxes were deducted. I took $300,000 out for us each, and then put the rest in a trust fund so that we wouldn’t be able to access it until three years later,” Chloe disclosed authoritatively.

“DUDE, WHAT!? WHY!?” Beca shouted, as if Chloe had told her an offensive Yo Mama joke.

“I felt it was the best course of action, Beca,” Chloe said, sounding appeasing, as though Beca were a small rodent that she was trying to approach without having it bite her. “I felt overwhelmed enough just being exorbitantly rich for a month; many thoughts entered my head about what to do with the money… some reasonable, others not so much… it led me to conclude that it would be best if we sealed the money away for a while to give ourselves time to mature, learn about wealth management, and properly plan for our respective futures without being too dependent on money taking care of every obstacle we might encounter. I figured $300,000 would be a nice amount to start us off, either paying off debts, schooling, rent, food, entertainment, and our own personal entrepreneurial ventures, should we choose to. Cities like Atlanta really eat away at our expenses, y’know?”

“Don’t I know it?” sighed Beca in commiseration. “Okay… fine, yeah, I get it, that is probably a wise money move… Why three years?”

“Oh, I was planning to go to graduate school,” Chloe shared happily. “The Ph.D. in Russian Literature will take me about 3 years to complete.”

“Oh, I forgot, this semester is your last,” Beca said in sudden realization, feeling strangely unsettled by the thought. “I’m glad you’re thinking about the future. Obviously, I don’t know you very well, but seeing how much thought you put into handling this situation I kind of just shoved on you… you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders and will do just fine.”

“Thanks,” Chloe responded abashedly with a tiny smile. “And, well, it seems like things worked out somehow. You graduate from BU in three years, too, so you’ll have plenty of money at your disposal to venture out on your own wherever you choose to kickstart your career, right?”

“Very true,” Beca agrees. “Well, for what it’s worth, you seem cool. I hope we stay in touch.”

Chloe stared at her amusedly. “What are you saying? BU has the greatest Russian Lit program in the country. Not to mention, I want to make sure I remain to help mentor the future generations of Barden Bellas.”

Beca blinked. “Oh.” She frowned in thought. “This soulmate business is some freaky stuff.”

“The universe is clearly facilitating our blossoming relationship,” Chloe noted with a sly grin. “Who are we to fight destiny?”

“You don’t suppose destiny takes bribes?” Beca asked wryly.

“I’m afraid not,” Chloe replied jokingly. “But if it’s any consolation, the hostess _is_ here to take our order.”

At this time, the hostess returned and took out a pad and pencil.

Beca stared around the lavish building and the city view, noticing the amount of careful thought Chloe put into their first meeting.

“I really hit the jackpot with you, didn’t I?” Beca asked amusedly.

“You literally did.”

 


	2. Countdown To Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Timer counts down to the moment you meet your soulmate. An unavoidable meeting.
> 
> Or is it?

It was gearing up to be the most spectated event in all of televised history.

 

More than any Entertainment Awards show.

 

More than any pioneering space venture.

 

More than any political election.

 

More than any sports match.

 

The viewership count for this spectacle would be unprecedented.

 

Chloë Beale, internationally renowned escape artist, didn’t find this shocking.

 

After all, it would be the first time that scientists would study an attempt to prevent a pre-determined soulmate encounter.

 

And she was the research subject that had volunteered to pull off this destiny-defying feat.

 

This trial would be recognized as the ultimate testament to her skill as well as an ego booster to her confidence.

 

After all, what better way to show off her talents than escaping her own fate?

 

//

 

Beca Mitchell, average ramen-fueled college student extraordinaire, found herself at the local Chili’s Restaurant, sitting at the bar area because she was alone and the individual attention made the service run faster there anyway. She had already ordered her drink.

 

Today, the place was packed to a squeeze.

 

She loved the triple beef, chicken, and shrimp fajita combo special just as much as the next person, but she really doubted that was the reason for the densely populated diner.

 

She noticed everyone staring at the TV monitors and in them she saw the image of a redhead sitting alone in a white, padded room.

 

There was a timer counting down on the lower right corner of the screen.

 

0 Years, 0 Months, 0 Days, 0 Hours, 12 Minutes, 34 Seconds.

 

Or, as is customarily displayed on a human being’s wrist:

 

00:00:00:00:12:34

 

A soulmate timer, counting down the time you have left until you inevitably meet your soulmate.

 

At the least, the purported inevitability of it is what she understood was currently being tested, according to what she was able to make out from the news anchors’ voiceover commentary.

 

Beca didn’t completely live under a rock; she was aware of current events and their implications. As a college student seeking future employment, she had to be aware of global events in order to be able to keep up sophisticated conversation with company recruiters at networking events.

 

She had always been a very impartial person, so she didn’t particularly have any strong opinions regarding the trial one way or another. The only thing she could say she felt at all was simple curiosity as to what would occur.

 

She never minded her own timer quite as much, if she was honest.

 

She didn’t like the countdown interfering with her life. She tended to cover her timer with a punk metal wristband, as the majority of people do (not necessarily a punk metal wristband in their case, but some sort of cover-up accessory).

 

Unlike the majority of the population, though, she didn’t constantly check her timer with as much obsessive frequency as people check notifications on their phones.

 

She believes the last time she checked her timer was probably a month ago, but she didn’t even really care enough to remember.

 

Obviously, she sees the numbers when she showers, sleeps, undresses, and otherwise does anything that requires her to take the wristband off, but they’re just visual noise and her brain has learned to stop registering the numbers.

 

She doesn’t want to overthink this whole soulmate thing.

 

Some people mark their calendars, take a day off work or school, and make sure they are at some ideally romantic place when their timer is about to hit zero, trying to exert as much control as they can on their fated rendezvous.

 

Beca doesn’t really care for it too much. She doesn’t want the timer to disturb her daily routine in any way. Her soulmate can meet her at the gynecologist waiting lobby for all the fucks she gives. She isn’t about to cancel that appointment for something like finding true love. That’s actually where she’s headed right after she’s done eating.

 

Scheduling doctor appointments with a waiting list is a long enough process, y’know?

 

So, she’s basic.

 

Other people are extra.

 

 _It pays to be practical_ , she thought to herself, watching as the girl on the screen stares at her wrist and glances around the blank room in search for any kind visual stimuli, to stave the boredom of the wait, probably.

 

//

 

00:00:00:00:08:24

 

 _Not too long now_ , Chloe thought to herself as she watched the ink shift on her skin with purses lips.  _This is probably the most unexciting escape attempt I’ve ever done, but it’s also the one with the most thrilling ramifications._

 

The empty room she currently found herself in was dubbed by the project scientists as the “No-Escape Room.”

 

_Cute._

 

And also accurate.

 

The entire purpose of this trial was to make sure no one could get in or out of the room until her timer reached sextuple  zero.

 

The room was constructed of the strongest metal alloys, welded into a seal to absolutely prevent any material from entering the space, and to top it all off with a twist, the room was actually a vault locked inside another underground room guarded by several security personnel that would stop any foreign agent (a.k.a her soulmate) that might try to botch the experiment. Another safeguard was added in that the guards themselves did not know the many access codes—verbal, written, computerized, or biological—needed to enter the room.

 

The vault she was locked inside contained absolutely nothing but white padding, in order to ensure she didn’t have any means of escape if she somehow became overcome by the urge to meet her soulmate.

 

There was also a medical emergency team located outside the building in case things went awry.

 

This kind of trial had never been done before. The scientists had no idea how she or her soulmate would react to being kept from their fateful meeting. They had to make sure they covered all their bases in order to keep them separated.

 

 _How very Disney of me._  Chloe chuckled to herself with animated eyes.  _I feel kind of like a princess locked in a castle, waiting for her knight in shining armor to come save her._

 

“Miss Beale, how are you holding up in there?” A voice asked over an imperceptible speaker.

 

Oh, right, laughing to herself probably looks a little deranged from the camera moderator’s point of view.

 

“I am doing tots fine over here, Chief!” she reassured with a beaming smile and a thumbs up, even though she had no idea where the camera was located.

 

These were the hourly mental health checks. Once her timer reaches zero, she will have spent a full 24 hours without exposure or interaction to the outside world.

 

She’s pulled off escape attempts that took hours to accomplish before, but she was usually busy trying to undo locks and chains during that entire time, so her mind was kept busy.

 

She supposed the only way to escape the universe was to hide away as best as she could.

 

The scientists needed a controlled environment, though, in order to eliminate any skewing variables, so she had to be put in a blank room.

 

Her soulmate could try to come and get her.

 

 _But they’ll first have to defeat the dragon I placed outside my own dungeon_ , she thought humorously.

 

//

 

00:00:00:00:03:47

 

Humans had timers before they even had a notion of time.

 

The modern portrayal of time actually owes its origins to the understanding that ancient civilizations gained through the studies drawn of the timers they saw on their wrists.

 

It was human curiosity that probed at the understanding of timers and their signaling arrival of a soulmate, so seeing if the prevention of said significant other brought about by this countdown could be prevented was the natural next question.

 

Beca knew this Chloe Beale person to be a escape artist hailing from Russia, from reading the biographical summary provided on the monitor.

 

 _What kind of person goes to such lengths to avoid their soulmate?_  Beca asked herself.

 

She found the artist intriguing enough to look her up on the Wikipedia. From the synopsis given of her life, Chloe appeared to be a happy-go-lucky, daredevil type of girl. She made a living off of preparing for and performing mind-boggling stunts that pushed the boundaries of human athletic and intellectual skill.

 

She wasn’t crazy about the whole soulmate deal, either, but she thinks it’s a lot more trouble trying to fight it than it is to just let it happen.

 

A soulmate is still just a person.

 

You can exchange contact information when you meet them.

 

Then block them when you get home, never see them again, and bam, conflict resolved.

 

Beca wonders for the first time if Chloe’s soulmate is watching this event.

 

If they’re doing anything about this at all.

 

If they CAN do anything.

 

How must the soulmate be feeling knowing that Chloe doesn’t want to meet them?

 

 _They probably shouldn’t have televised the event, to ensure the soulmate didn’t try to get to Chloe somehow_ , Beca thinks to herself as the bartender—a slim blonde—approaches to leave her drink and reassure her that she will be back in a moment to take her order. Beca asks her for extra chips, as well. She loves the nacho chips. _Then again, there was that controversy about human rights violations with the whole ‘locking a person in a room’ for hours without food or social interaction. The project eventually decided to televise the event in the interests of full transparency to their methods._

 

This leads Beca to wonder if anything like what this experiment is trying to accomplish has ever been done, or occurred, before, under uncontrolled circumstances. If it had, then there are no recorded instances in known modern history where two soulmates have been unable to reach one another.

 

Somehow, some way, the universe makes it happen.

 

Mother Nature don’t play.

 

No exceptions.

 

But… humankind has always been that problematic family black sheep of a child reluctantly invited to co-exist as siblings with the rest of Earth’s fair creatures.

 

And like any precocious child that looks a gift horse in the mouth, they do not appreciate their parents picking out their romantic suitors _for_ them in advance.

 

Beca hadn’t found herself thinking so actively about soulmate timers in several months now. She decided, then, that it was as good time as any to check how far along her countdown was since the last time she cared to truly register the numbers shifting on her wrist.

 

She apathetically unclipped the metal bracelet and, immediately, her chest felt the loudest, most clenching thump her heart ever did dare beat.

 

00:00:00:00:01:05

 

A myriad of thoughts rushed through her mind— _WHAT THE CUP!_ — _I’m not ready_ — _They’re here?_ — _Of all the goddamn places!_ — _I am going to_ kill _them for their awful timing, ugh!_ — _Who is it? Which. Of. You. Is. It?_ — _None of you are attractive, I know it’s shallow, but_ _can you blame!_ — _What do I even say to them?_ — _Soulmate or not, I’m not sharing my fajitas_ — _But if we hit it off… maybe they can pay my bill?_ — _Are you kidding me right now!—Agh, I wanna just avoid this meeting altogether!_

At this final string of thought, in the back of the mind, Beca suddenly remembered the girl on television who was trying to accomplish this exact same thing.

 

She glanced at the TV in a panic because it was the only nearby object to casually look at that would allow her to dodge eye contact with the crowd that she now claustrophobically felt encroaching her personal space.

00:00:00:00:00:42

 

Beca’s stomach heavily bottomed out at the sight of the redhead’s timer on the screen.

 

She gulped uncomfortably and shakily glanced at her own timer, then at Chloe’s, then at her own again, and so on back and forth.

 

00:00:00:00:00:41     |    00:00:00:00:00:41

 

00:00:00:00:00:40     |    00:00:00:00:00:40    

 

00:00:00:00:00:39     |    00:00:00:00:00:39    

 

00:00:00:00:00:38    |    00:00:00:00:00:38    

 

00:00:00:00:00:37     |    00:00:00:00:00:37    

 

_Oh, God._

_Oh, my God. No._

_What Twilight Zone bullshit is this?_

_This isn’t happening._

_How are we matching second by **stupid** second!?_

She wasn’t slow.

 

She knew what the only plausible explanation could be, but refused to shape the amorphous idea into a concrete thought, because then the truth would be irrefutable.

 

It would mean that… she didn’t want to meet her.

 

She literally locked herself away, underground, in a vault, with buff bodyguards and unbreakable security access codes, hidden in fuck-knows-where, for hours, just to avoid meeting _her_.

 

Because of _course_ her soulmate would be her absolute antithesis.

 

The most obnoxiously extreme levels of extra.

“Extra order of chips?”

 

00:00:00:00:00:00

 

Beca’s spaced-out eyes sharply shot up from her wrist in disbelief.

 

“Hi, I’m Stacie,” a brunette greeted her with a welcoming smile, standing opposite Beca at the bar table. “Amy’s shift ended, but she told me you asked for sweet tea and an extra side of chips. Now, do you know what you want to eat?”

 

Beca released a breathy, incredulous chuckle.

 

Her world made sense again.

 

That had been quite the scare.

 

“So, it’s you then?” Beca sighed out in relief, still reeling from the previous excitement.

 

Stacie cocked her head and pursed her lips in confusion. “Well, yeah, I _am_ your server.”

 

“No, uh, I mean… soulmate…,” Beca clarified while clearing her throat, shyly and somewhat reluctantly showing her zeroed out timer to the waitress.

 

The waitress’ eyes widened in shock. “What? Are you—? How can that be? I just checked my timer this morning!” She quickly removed her own stylish wristband and showed the numbers, still counting down, on her wrist. “I at least have three more years to go!”

 

Beca’s surroundings once again took on that nightmarish, sepia tone that indicated she was entering a disturbed mental state.

 

“Sorry, but isn’t it just totally crazy that you’re timed out and your soulmate’s nowhere to be seen? I’ve never heard of that!” Stacie exclaimed, scandalized but intrigued.

 

“Wha…”

 

Everything was becoming blurry.

 

“Hey, are you okay!?” Stacie, sounding muffled out, shouted in alarm.

 

She felt her mind sway dangerously.

 

She heard the crowd begin to shout and gasp and chatter in a panic. She felt like snorting in disbelief; she hardly would’ve thought people would care to notice her declining physical and mental awareness.

 

“Hey, hey, hey, stay with me, okay? You’re going to be just fine!” Stacie soothed anxiously. “Hey, all of you, stop watching the stupid TV for a minute and make yourselves useful! Call 911!”

 

It was as the hustle and bustle became louder that Beca realized her spectators weren’t originally reacting to _her_ , but to the redhead daredevil on TV.

 

Beca weakly panned her hooded, out-of-focus vision to align itself with the TV monitor.

 

The last thing she saw was the redhead’s still, prone form, and her dooming timer at the corner of the screen, before public censorship, as well as her own deteriorating mind, blacked out the image.

 

00:00:00:00:00:00

 

//

 

Her vision blurred back into focus, but she was too weak to execute any form of movement aside from blinking into wakefulness.

 

“… You’re late.”

A familiar voice, now sounding slightly subdued, remarked as Beca turned her head and met with the soft, cerulean gaze of the redheaded challenger herself.

The girl, which she had just moments before seen lying unmoving in her vault, was resting flat on her back on a white hospital bed, IV drip needle piercing her wrist, where the zeroed out timer lay blatantly in display.

Beca blinked weakly and noticed she was also in a similar position.

“Whaddayamean?” Beca slurred, staring at the blinking zeros on her wrist. “My biological clock tells me I’m Right... On... Time.”

“Well… hate to tell ya… but you might wanna to get your watch checked out,” Chloe breathed out with a low chuckle. “It’s been stuck… on zero… for a while.”

“And whose fault... is that?” Beca questioned with a tiny, impish scowl. “I wasn’t the one playing hard to get…”

Chloe playfully rolled her eyes. “You’re not exactly… ‘ _the one that got away_ ,’ either …”

“What can I say?... I’m a total catch…”

“Hook, line, and… sync,” Chloe concurred with a weak smirk, reaching out to touch her fingertips to Beca’s, trying but failing to intertwine them before she passed out with no preamble.

Beca watched the numbers vanish on her skin as she remained in contact with Chloe.

She allowed her fingertips to remain in touch with hers until she, too, fell unconscious once again.

//

That was the last Beca saw of Chloe for a week after the incident.  
  
She spent the week recovering at the Treble Atlanta Medical Center, granted an excused absence from college so that she could have extended deadlines to turn in her schoolwork once she was cleared to return to Barden University.  
  
As if it wasn’t bad enough that she had apparently suffered a sudden cardiac arrest, she had also been confined to indefinite bed rest.  
  
She passed the time reading gossip magazines, watching trashy television, scrolling through her mindless social media, and blankly contemplating her cosmic insignificance during times of most poignant boredom.  
  
The nurses informed her that she would be discharged today after she met with the principal investigators of that soulmate shirking experiment that Chloe had been a part of.  
  
Since she had unwittingly become entangled in the affairs of the project, having turned out to be Chloe’s infamous long-lost-and-unwanted-to-be-found soulmate and all, her presence had been requested at the final out-processing meeting in order for her to be briefed on the results and confidentiality of certain aspects of the project.  
  
After another hour spent in her hospital recovery room, the nurses came to get and lead her to the meeting room, a nice conference room where the hospital doctors usually held their own work meetings.  
  
She was surprised to find Chloe—donning the same yellow hospital gown that she herself was—and two of the principal investigators—sporting their white robes—already sat and waiting in the room for her.  
  
“Good morning, Ms. Mitchell,” one of the investigators, a man, welcomed her. “Please take a seat.” Beca cautiously took a seat next to Chloe, who acknowledged her with a tentative and mute smile. “Allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Dr. Benji Applebaum. I am the chief principal investigator of the Soulmate Separation project.” She pointed to the lady sitting next to him. “This is Dr. Lillianne Onakuramara, she is the vice-chief principal investigator of the project.” She gestured in Chloe’s direction. “And I believe you’ve met, or at least heard about, Ms. Chloe Beale, a renowned escape artist and valued volunteer research subject of this project.”  
  
Beca looked around at all of them and nodded quickly in greeting. “Hi. Beca. Star-crossed Soulmate.” She stayed awkwardly quiet, thinking if there was anything else she needed to add. “Don’t know how I ended up here.”

 

“ ~~Because absolutely nothing in the universe will tear my ship apart my OTP is meant to be I swear it by the pact I made with the devil that gave away my firstborn~~ ,” Dr. Onakuramara said in a low voice.

 

“Um, sorry, could you please repeat that?” Chloe requested politely, leaning in closer across the table to try and better hear the researcher with the wispy tone.

 

Beca stared at the Asian scientist with wide, horrified eyes, stunned in her seat.

 

“Yes, that is the first order of business,” Dr. Applebaum began, clearing his throat to redirect everyone’s attention. “When the timers reached zero, there was about a 30 second minute window in which nothing seemed to be out of place with Ms. Beale. We had allowed for, at most, one hour after the timer reached zero to keep Ms. Beale in the room, to ensure that there were no flukes in the soulmate meeting timing. After the 30 seconds had passed, however, Ms. Beale began to exhibit signals of stress and soon her body went into cardiac arrest. We had a medical team ready to go just in case the unthinkable occurred. Thanks to their fast-acting response, we were able to quickly transport Ms. Beale to the nearest medical facility—the hospital we are currently residing in. Our research team was dispatched to accompany and observe Ms. Beale throughout her medical emergency in order to evaluate her condition. At the same time, another patient was being brought into this same hospital due to a cardiac arrest. This patient was accompanied by a young lady that worked at the local Chili’s. She was frantically shouting about zeroed out timers and the sudden collapse of her customer at the restaurant. This individual was you, Ms. Mitchell. We knew your presence at the exact same hospital that Ms. Beale was being treated at was no coincidence, so we dispatched another team to monitor you during your medical emergency.” He stopped to meaningfully glance at the two girls. “You two were placed under a medically induced coma and stayed in the intensive care unit for a week before you regained consciousness. You were placed in the same room because it seemed that the physically closer you were to each other, the more improved your respective conditions became. After each of your statuses stabilized, you were deemed well enough to be separated and wheeled to your respective recovery rooms in the hospital, where you have been staying at for the past week while you regained your strength.”

 

Beca’s eyes fluttered as she blinked rapidly, trying to process all the new information. “Uh, is anybody else shook by all this? Anyone? No one? Just me? Alright.”

 

Chloe appeared to be coping much better. Then again, she had been a part of the project from the start so maybe she had been explained what risks to expect of the experiment and, as such, the news was easier to handle.

 

“ ~~Shhh, easy, don’t fight it~~ ,” Dr. Onakuramara said with an intense gaze.

 

And now Beca was even more freaked.  

 

“This leads me to the crux of the matter,” Dr. Applebaum resumed, pulling some documents out of an envelope, and skimming through them as he spoke to the two girls. “The results of the experiment.” Both Chloe and Beca repositioned themselves in their seats, listening intently. “We’ve had two weeks to process data, both qualitative and quantitative. It is still too early to draw definitive conclusions, but we have good reason to believe that the soulmate meeting timer phenomenon occurs as a consequence of what is known as ectohormones. Ectohormones are hormones that act outside the body of the individual that secretes them, affecting the behavior and activity of another individual of the same species, in the likeness of a pheromone. To this day, there has been no conclusive proof that human beings release pheromones. The scientific community has been able to isolate pheromonic compounds in other mammals over the decades, but the evidence to support human organically generated pheromones has been weak. During your medical stay, we ran some tests on both of you, and though we had before and after information for Ms. Beale, we had none for Ms. Mitchell, so we had to secure government permission in order to procure these records.”

 

Beca would have felt violated but she was apathetic about most things in life already, so she really couldn’t be bothered.

 

“At closer inspection, we detected a change in your brain compositions. Certain synaptic receptors had become occupied by a hormone unknown to the scientific community—let’s call it hormone X. We found these hormones located in the parietal lobe of the brain. At cross-referencing this location with other people’s, we found that people who had not yet found their soulmates did not have these synaptic receptors occupied; whereas people that had found their soulmate did have these synaptic receptors occupied, but with a different hormone than the one we found on you two—let’s call this other hormone the post-soulmate meeting hormone Y. After various simulations, we have come to postulate that hormone X transforms, through some yet undiscovered reaction mechanism, into hormone Y. It seems that these reactions take place during a set amount of time and, if we may infer further, affect the perception that soulbonded people have of each other, making them more amenable to the idea of becoming mated for life with one another.”

 

“O… kay, I watch the occasional sci-fi flick, doesn’t seem too far-fetched,” Beca says with a shoulder shrug. “But why did we end up getting a heart attack?”

 

“Our hearts ached for each other?” Chloe piped up with a playful grin.

 

“… An explanation that isn’t so disgustingly corny it gives me diabetes, please,” Beca requested with a deadpan expression.

 

“We still have not been able to pinpoint the exact cause, but we have gone through a process of elimination and can reassure you that there is nothing inherently wrong with your bodies. If anything, your symptoms were more in line with those of a stroke, seeing as the cause appeared to originate from your brains. We can only assume that the reason had to do with not having that hormone occupying your synaptic receptors when your timer hit zero. You needed Ms. Beale’s pheromones to reach you, and vice versa. Another far-reaching conclusion we have settled on is that it would appear that the timers more accurately reflect how long an individual has to live—literally—before they need the presence of their soulmate and the ectohormones they secrete in order to remain alive.”

 

“I… see,” Chloe said with a thoughtful head nod. “So… how do you explain people that live on after their soulmates pass away, if we need each other’s ectohormones to survive—that is, if the line of logic drawn from the experiment are proven correct?”

 

“ ~~You will never die I made sure of it~~ ,” Dr. Onakuramara softly said.

 

Beca blinked uneasily. She tried to make searching eye contact with the other two occupants in the room to no avail.

 

“That is a fair point, Ms. Beale. We researched that, as well. On average, soulmates live for five years after their soulmate has passed on, with the data spanning 3 days as the minimum and 8 years as the maximum. There was one outlier where the bereaved soulmate lived for 10 years after the fact, but we left that one out so as not to skew the data. Obviously, we have not conducted any kind of trials on this, so we have nothing to go on but speculation, but we believe that the deceased soulmate’s pheromones remain in the synaptic receptors of the brain of their soulmate, and that these degrade over time, and without the soulmate there to replenish the supply, the soulmate eventually dies—personal emotions notwithstanding, of course.”

 

“Oh, like, dying of sadness and loneliness, you mean?” Chloe asked sympathetically.

 

“Precisely,” Dr. Applebaum confirmed.

 

“But what about people that choose not to be together with their soulmates? What about them?” Beca inquired curiously. “I’ve met those people.”

 

“That is also a good question, Ms. Mitchell,” Dr. Applebaum said with a smile. “We wondered about that, as well. Think about it, though. All those people met their soulmates through their timer, anyway, they were not able to escape that initial meeting. It appears that there is something crucial about that very first meeting in the effect it has on the hormone placement in each other’s brains. After that, it appears you are allowed to go your different ways without requiring such close proximity. Did you know? Insect pheromones can travel paramount distances. It would follow, then, that a human pheromone would travel even grander distances, if we scale up the ratios. We believe that, for this reason, even if the soulmates reject one another, they are able to remain alive even if they do not interact with one another on a daily basis or if they are not in close proximity. This is what allows soulmates to have long-distance relationships without jeopardizing their lives. The pheromones—invisible particles traveling through our air—are able to find their target receptors across the globe. In general, though, most soulmates tend to remain together (I mentioned the hormone makes the soulmates more emotionally open to each other in order to make this possible); it seems the quality of life is improved if that is the case.”

 

“Wow… that’s… insane,” Beca said with an awed expression.

 

“I think it’s sweet,” Chloe added with a cheerful smile and clasped hands. “A part of each other always following wherever they go, every step they take, every move they make…”

 

 _Jesus, my soulmate’s a creeper_ , Beca thought cringingly.

 

“Again, I must reiterate that everything I have told you is still nothing but conjecture drawn from early observations. We must run a couple more trials in order to reach more solid conclusions, but we felt that you both needed an explanation for what happened to you, as well as a status on where we are with the results of the project.”

 

“So… what happens now?” Beca asked with a tilted head and a frown.

 

“ ~~Now kiss~~.”

 

Beca raised both eyebrows with an incredulous expression.

 

Dr. Onakuramara stuck her tongue out at her and wiggled it with a stoic expression.

 

“Really? No one else is seeing this? Am I the only one hearing things here?” Beca uncomfortably asked breathily, looking spooked.

 

Chloe and Dr. Applebaum gazed at her quizzically.

 

“Okay, then. Never mind. Ignore me. I’m just going crazy, no big,” Beca mumbled out, sinking further back into her seat with pursed lips.

 

Dr. Applebaum cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, if you have no more questions, the other reason we wanted to meet with you is because, we were wondering if you would consent to remaining on the project to be further investigated, given that you two are our first soulmate separation test subjects and the data we have collected on you thus far has assisted our research and expanded our knowledge immensely. We are in the process of screening other volunteers that have yet to find their soulmates, as well, so you would not be the sole participants.”

 

“Dude, I literally just survived a heart attack brought on by your experiment,” Beca stated with a distrustful expression, holding her palm up and glaring at the male scientist. “Like, my soul basically _abandoned_ my body—and you’re asking me to consider signing up for this project that gives me way high Deadman Wonderland vibes? Seriously?”

 

Chloe witnessed the tension suddenly enveloping the group. She took a deep breath and calmly said, “Dr. Applebaum, Dr. Onakuramara, would you please give my other half and I a minute in private?”

 

“Of course,” Dr. Applebaum conceded genially, rising from his seat along with his colleague.

 

“ ~~I’ll keep him distracted you two elope together make love have beautiful children I arranged for a helicopter to take you to Lesbos it’s waiting on the roof don’t look back the all-expenses paid resort tickets are taped under the table~~ ,” Dr. Onakuramara said over her shoulder before she left.

 

“Listen, I know I don’t know you very well, but even with your questionable career choices all pointing to the contrary, you’re not actually crazy enough to keep moving forward with this bull?” Beca asked skeptically.  
  
Chloe smiled enigmatically before she proceeded to shrug in a carefree manner. “Why not? We’re already past the worst part.”  
  
Beca rolls her eyes. “Really, Beca, did you expect anything else from the wacko thrill-seeking stuntwoman that dragged you into this hot mess in the first place?”  
  
“You’re talking to yourself, and I’m the wacko one?” Chloe asked, brow furrowed in concern.  
  
“Well, clearly each of us is contributing her own brand of crazy to this relationship,” Beca grumbled out, arms folded before her chest.  
  
Chloe grinned playfully. “So there’s a relationship here that bears contributing to?”  
  
Beca looked offended. “No! No? Yes! I mean, look, I’m not psyched about this either, but we’re now bound together by forces outside our control, and I’m sorry you got paired with the universe’s resident idea of a cosmic joke, but even this clown would like the chance to live out the rest of her pathetic existence in relative peace.”

 

“C’mon, Beca, your life can’t be that bad,” Chloe reassured with a sympathetic smile.

 

“Said no one ever,” a peeved Beca muttered out sarcastically.

 

Chloe eyed the brunette pensively. “You know, I wouldn’t be considering continuing the project at all if I weren’t so convinced that you were going to ghost me as soon as we left the facility.”

 

“You’re the one that makes a living off of disappearing acts, not me,” Beca expressed wryly, shooting a cheeky smirk Chloe’s way.

 

Chloe was not amused.

 

Beca released a long-suffering sigh. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. Now that I know—well, at least according to the speculation—that I don’t really need to be close to you in order to stay alive… yes, I was kind of expecting both of us to go our separate ways after this.”

 

Chloe bit the inside of her cheek, jostling her many thoughts around in her head before selecting which one to voice. “It’s strange how it all just comes down to science. It’s like nothing is sacred anymore.”

 

Beca gazed at Chloe attentively.

 

“Like, when I perform my escape art stunts… no one but me and a select few know how I go about doing it. To the spectators, it’s almost like witnessing magic, but to those privy to the trick, it’s the wielding of technique to pull off an impressive feat. You see, even when you know how it’s done, it still takes honed skill to perfect an illusion. If all it took to perform a trick was understanding the perfunctory steps to it, then everyone would be doing it. The reason it’s hard is because you still gotta train to make it work. It’s the reason why I try my absolute best to prepare for my performances… if I screw up, I either ruin the magic for others or, in some cases, actually risk death.”

 

Beca nodded thoughtfully, still unsure as to where Chloe was going with her story but wanting to demonstrate that she was listening.

 

“Timers can be a little bit like that,” Chloe continued, turning make meaning eye contact with Beca. “By doing this stunt, I wanted to prove to myself that some things were still mystical and beyond the sobering touch of science. In my line of work, I am too aware of the behind the scenes. With the Timer… I wanted to believe that there was someone out there for me, and that no matter how hard I tried to fight it, that person would come to me, anyway… I was so psyched when I met you! I thought, ‘By divine intervention, and against all odds, here she is!’ But then the doctor explained that the reason we couldn’t escape our meeting was pheromones… it kind of ruined the whole ‘fate’ thing for me.”

 

Beca’s brow creased in sympathy. “But, hey, I mean, it’s still just a theory? A pretty sound one”—Chloe continued to look dejected—“but a theory, nonetheless!”

 

Chloe smiled weakly. “I appreciate you trying to make me feel better.”

 

Beca cursed inwardly. She didn’t buy into all that soulmate shuck, but Chloe literally locked herself under three layers of security barriers to prove herself a point. The least Beca could do was give her a more thoughtful response.

 

“Well, you know, yeah, there’s the whole pheromone thing and how our receptors suit and make us more amenable to one another… and, yeah, maybe the pheromones naturally attracted us to the same location at the time the Timers dictated, but …. we were still born with these biological components that can only engage each other, and no one else. Where’s the scientific explanation for that? You were made for me, and I was made for you, as gag-worthy corny as it sounds, and as far as we know, there’s no known reason for why that occurred. And, dude, I don’t know about you, but I think that’s kind of epic.”

 

Chloe stared at Beca intensely for several, heavy-packed seconds before she smiled brightly and said, “It _is_ pretty mind-blowing.”

 

Beca bashfully smiled back.

 

They spent a few more minutes in quietness, each ensconced in their thoughts, before Beca, who’d endured more than enough awkward silences in her young life to suffer one with her soulmate, spoke up, “So, I figure if you’re going to tag along, this whole becoming lab rat mates won’t be too much of a drag. Do you still want to continue being a research subject for the betterment of humanity or—?”

 

“Do you want to get out of here?” Chloe abruptly asked with a sly grin and mischievous eyes.

 

Beca blinked, pleasantly surprised. “I wasn’t expecting to be propositioned so soon after meeting you. Despite how I look, I do actually prefer to be wined and dined by a lady before I even consider—”

 

“Stop being such a dork, we’re running out of time,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes good-naturedly and standing up, holding out her palm to Beca. “So… what’ll it be?”

 

“Well, if you’re leaving, I _guess_ I don’t want to risk another heart attack…” Beca said flakily, shrugging non-committally.

 

Chloe quirked her eyebrow in mock-impatience. “Yes or no, Ms. Wishy-Washy?”

 

Beca took the proffered hand in a gesture of solidarity. “You don’t gotta ask me twice, Chlo.”

 

 “I kinda already did, Becs, more than twice, but we can revisit that later,” Chloe mirthfully said, basking in the new nickname and squeezing Beca’s hand, tugging on it to nudge them toward the glass exit door of the conference room.

 

“Wait,” Beca piped up, tightening her hold on Chloe’s hand to get the redhead to stop. “How are we going to get out of here without being seen?”

 

“Uh… escape artist?” Chloe reminded cheekily, pointing to herself.

 

“Right.” Beca blinked neutrally. “Hot.” She continued to stare in a deadpan manner. “Do your thing.”

 

Chloe nodded and led the charge to the door.

 

“Hold on,” Beca exclaimed again, rushing back to the conference table and feeling underneath the tabletop until she felt the telltale scrape of paper and ripped it off from below.

 

“Becs, our romantic getaway won’t look as romantic if you keep interrupting it,” Chloe whined with a pout. She looked at the papers Beca obtained from beneath the table. “Um, why do you have two all-expenses-paid, one-way trip tickets to a Lesbos resort in your hands?”

 

Beca shuddered uncomfortably. “You don’t wanna know. Can you get us to the roof?”

 

“Uh… sure. Any reason why?”

 

“Just a hunch,” Beca responded with a haunted grimace.

 

“’Kay, hurry up and follow me as best you can, try not to trip over our hospital gowns,” Chloe said with an eager urgency to her voice, dashing out of the room. “We got a countdown looming over our heads.”

 

“Crap, are they about to come back for us or something?” Beca inquired fitfully, reaching for Chloe’s hand again so as not to lose her.

 

“Oh, yeah, them, too,” Chloe said distractedly, climbing up the emergency stairs rather than waiting for the elevator. “But I meant the countdown to the rest of our lives, silly!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why do I keep writing long ass chapters? LOL.
> 
> I promise the next few will be briefer. I get too into it sometimes! 
> 
> Also, if you enjoy my fanfiction, please consider donating a bit to a starving artist and college student (double the starving :'D)!
> 
> http://ko-fi.com/omniessence


	3. The Soulmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe, like most of the girls, hopes to find love on The Bachelor.
> 
> The latest episode's script, however, has her suspecting her soulmate might be one of her fellow contestants.
> 
> She might just hit 'pass' on that rose.

Today was it - the day Chloe would meet her soulmate.

How was she so sure?

The latest The Bachelor script sealed her fate in blunt Times New Roman.

_‘Not a word out of you, Bitch!’_

The passionate (to say the least) first words her soulmate (and scene partner) would say to her when the cameras rolled later today.

 _I have to admit I’m kind of relieved_ , mused Chloe with a grateful sigh. _This whole time I’ve thought my soulmate would hate me from the get-go. But now that I know it’s scripted, I feel a lot better about this tattoo._

Her whole life she’d wondered what it was that she would do that would tick her soulmate off so much that they would go off on a total stranger (a.k.a her).

Maybe she would spill scalding coffee on them? Too cliche.

Maybe she would accidentally trip them at a cross-walk? Too meet-cute.

Maybe she would be singing really loudly at a library?... Why would she do that in the first place?

The possibilities were endless and she’d by now probably formed a linear microscopic dent in her brain with the amount of times she’d mentally run the scenarios to exhaustion.

Being an actress, though, Chloe couldn’t believe she never spared a thought to the possibility that her tattoo could be a scripted line.

~

Stacie Conrad is set to play opposite her in the upcoming “contestant cat fight” scene.

Chloe’s never directly spoken with Stacie before, and thus far, this means the soulmate equation is adding up and balancing out as it should.

Stacie has been a contestant alongside Chloe for the past 8 episodes, and though neither have had the chance to properly interact, from what Chloe’s seen of Stacie’s behavior, she never thought Stacie would be her soulmate.

Stacie had come off as a very loose, carefree girl; never the type to pass on the opportunity to party; could go a little overboard with her drinking habits; usually displayed a very positive vibe but had no problems starting up conflict with her mean streak (usually when instructed to by the crew to play the villain for a particular episode); her improv was practically flawless and Chloe suspected that no one could fall that easily into trash talking others unless they had some kind of past experience as a popular crowd bully in school or something.

Well, most people aren’t usually convinced their relationships with their soulmates will work out when they meet the person and find that their differences are too hard to conciliate, but somehow a relationship fleshes out and they end up happily together.

Maybe she and Stacie would turn out to be the same?

She still hadn’t properly met the girl yet, so Chloe thought she should reserve her judgment.

~

Chloe had butterflies in her stomach.

She told herself she wasn’t very impressed with Stacie, but now that they’re standing at their marks and the camera crew is prepping to roll, she’s feeling unmoored by the fact that the moment she has waited her entire life for is finally here.

Her best friend and fellow contestant these past eight episodes, Aubrey Posen, is standing at her own mark with the rest of the remaining contestants, all of them ready to play their part as scandalized crowd witnessing the catty brawl between Chloe and Stacie.

Aubrey is the only person Chloe’s told about Stacie being her soulmate. After getting over the shock that Chloe’s soulmate is a girl, Aubrey mostly expressed a positive opinion of Stacie, and gave Chloe her blessings and playful well wishes of “good luck trying to tame that hussy.”

If Chloe thought _she_ was feeling anxious, the look on Aubrey’s face has her thinking her blonde friend would just as readily sympathy puke in her stead.

The anticipation really was the worst of it.

Stacie was held up in hair and make-up much longer than they usually take on her, which made Chloe wonder... does Stacie also know Chloe’s her soulmate?

Chloe also had been given a scripted line she had to bite back in response to Stacie’s to kick off the feud before they could improv the rest of the argument.

_‘I bet that’s what they scream at you in bed, you Whore!’_

Yeah. Harsh. But the show’s become a lot gutsier about their word choice lately, since they can’t keep hurling the same network approved insults over and over and watching their ratings drop into cancellation territory. The network can act all offended and like they didn’t vouch for this, but even they know that the viewership appreciates a good, expletive-fraught bitch fight.

Apparently, the crew also expected them to maybe throw in some slapping, wrestling, or hair pulling, if they really get into it.

Chloe was not too thrilled about her first interaction with her soulmate being so violent, but she already had plans to apologize to Stacie after they were done filming the scene.

Maybe Stacie was also feeling awkward about it and didn’t want to honestly talk to her until after they were done, too.

“Everybody in position ready to go? Chloe? Stacie?” the Director queried professionally.

“Tots!” Chloe.

“Yup!” Stacie.

“Alrighty then, here we go. Ready, set... action!”

~

“Don’t even start with me, you Bitch!”

“I bet that’s what they... scream... at um...?”

“Shit, those weren’t the right words!”

They really, really weren’t.

“Stacie, sweetheart, I love the fire behind the line, but if you could stick to the script just for the fuse-litting phrases, that’d be great!” the Director instructed gently. “You can throw yourself into the improv right after those key lines.”

Stacie chuckled bashfully. “Sorry, I’ll get them right this time around.”

 _Unlike television, soulmates don’t get do-overs_ , Chloe thought hollowly.

The only other thought running through Chloe’s morose mind was that her soulmate really _will_ spit those rude words at her in real life over some stupid thing she’ll do to them in the future.

“Okay, once again, ready, set... action!”

Chloe shook herself out of her stupor because apparently she didn’t have time to wallow at this very moment.

“I don’t want to hear anything out of you, Bitch!”

“I bet that’s what they scream at you in bed, you Whore!”

“Cut! Cut. We’ll roll it again. Stacie, darling, are you okay? Do you need to take a moment?”

Chloe had been running on automatic. She hadn’t even registered Stacie’s words anymore. She just knew they still weren’t the ones she was looking for.

Aubrey was sending her comforting looks but they only made Chloe feel more awful and embarrassed.

They did the take three more times, and Stacie actually got the line right, but the two of them kept awkwardly petering out in the middle of their verbal squabble, and Chloe inwardly knew that she was the one at fault now for their scene falling flat, but Stacie was gracious enough to take some of the blame off her shoulders by saying she threw off their mojo by messing up at the beginning.

Chloe _was_ feeling thrown off by something Stacie said, but not for the reasons her co-star thought.

Eventually, the Director asked the scene coach, a mousy brunette, to take over and mold the duo into the right mood and mindset to take on the apparently challenging scene.

Chloe had a natural talent for working the camera and interpreting artistic instruction, so she had never needed the intervention of the scene coach, and as such, had never spoken with the short statured brunette.

She was, however, familiar with the dynamic between a coach and a reality TV actor from having witnessed the exchanges the coach had previously had with other contestants whose performances hadn’t been portraying what their “character-type” was meant to.

If Chloe wasn’t careful, either she or Stacie would get switched out with another contestant that could effectively perform the verbal and physical smack down.

The coach, dressed in casual jeans and sweatshirt, and whom Chloe had seen scurrying around prepping other girls for their scenes whenever they ran into trouble, approached Stacie first.

“Beca, hey, sorry about the hold-up,” Stacie said apologetically.

“It’s fine,” Beca reassured dismissively. “If you guys didn’t mess up every now and then, I wouldn’t have a job, right?”

Chloe was slightly stewing because she had never needed a coach until this particular scene. She had always played her TV role as the sweet, naive, valley girl without a chink in her assigned character. The only thing that had her off her game today was her failed soulmate encounter.

She just needed time to process the disappointment, not some coach telling her how to do her job.

“So remember what your target is for this scene. You’re pissed that Chloe deliberately interrupted your date time with Jesse”—the Bachelor—“and you’re catching and confronting her as she’s leaving.”

“Right,” Stacie said, nodding genially.

Chloe wanted to roll her eyes and huff. _We don’t need to be told that. Scene context is written in the script._

“So roar into the scene with a vengeance and the knowledge that you’re about to slap a bitch that deserves what’s coming to her. And then some. Okay?” Beca encouraged earnestly, clenching her first emphatically.

Stacie continued to nod rapidly in understanding.

Chloe knew the job of the coach was to hype the actor into the scene zone but was it really necessary to get called a ‘bitch’ off-camera?

“The Director liked the way you opened the line, but he thinks it should be a lot more savage, y’know?” Beca explained professionally. “‘Cause after that is when you and that home wrecker actually engage physically and that kind of development only makes sense if you’re HELLA raging, got it?”

“Okay, yeah, I think... yeah, I can do that,” Stacie said thoughtfully, trying to emotionally work herself into the character they were trying to portray.

 _Home-wrecker?_ Chloe thought with an offended pout; she wasn’t usually this sensitive but today’s false alarm really left her feeling particularly vulnerable to negative external stimuli.

Beca gazed at the brunette pensively before she said, “How about... just to make sure neither of us gets our asses chewed out by the director for another failed scene, I give you a quick demo of what I need you to do so we’re on the same page?”

Stacie smiled gratefully. “That’d help a ton.”

Chloe continued to look on with interest, intrigued by Beca’s quirky method of coaching. She was now curiously looking forward to making the short brunette’s acquaintance and seeing what kind of advice she would give her.

“Alright, great, so...” Beca hovers her hands over Stacie’s shoulders to frame her positioning until she finds it satisfactory. “You’re going to stomp to your mark... up to right here.” She taps the mark with her foot. “Pause for five seconds, so the camera can zoom in on the glower you’ll be shooting at Chloe. At this point, Chloe will feint an attempt to speak. You’ll furiously lock eyes with her, and cut her off with”—Beca sharply pivots in place, trapping the startled redhead with a poignant glare—“Not a word out of you, Bitch!”

Chloe’s knees wobbled and she gulped as her heart pumped the deepest THUMP it had since that one time at a carnival haunted house in her childhood.

Beca swiveled partially back to face her mentee but keep Chloe in the loop. “Then Chloe shouts her line at you, you take one step closer to her and either ad-lib the next line if you’re so inclined or borrow one of the suggested follow-up insults supplied in the script to keep the heated dialogue going. Then she’ll take another step closer to you and shout some other profanity, you’ll shoot off a couple more jibes, ‘You useless slut’ here, ‘You evil ginger’ there, ‘You ugly ho’ somewhere, hell, throw in a nasty Yo Mama joke if you’re really into the moment, nothing’s off limits since we can censor or cut out anything _really_ bad, then after you’re done with your spiel Chloe’ll come in and totally go to town on you and say something like...”

Beca gestured to Chloe and the redhead realized that Beca was prompting her to come up with an insult.

Chloe was still reeling from the revelation that Beca is her soulmate and was drawing you blanks, blinking and gawping at the confused scene coach.

Beca misinterpreted Chloe’s mutism for having caught her off guard and needing to ‘hype her into the scene zone’ like she did with Stacie.

Beca narrowed her eyes and affected an angry scowl on her features. “When I said ‘not a word out of you, bitch!’ I didn’t mean it literally, you stupid cunt! Ugh, I can’t believe Jesse bothers to give your dumbass the time of day! Now, are you gonna say some shit to defend your pussy self or are you gonna make me cut over there and whack some responsiveness into that anorexically bony build you call a body?”

Chloe shook her head slowly, impressed, and mentally grinned mischievously before saying, “Keep talking dirty to me, Daddy.”

Beca froze and a look of abject horror and humiliation crossed her wide eyes as she stared in open-mouthed shock at the redhead.

Stacie looked back and forth between the two of them.

“So... is underlying sexual tension something else I should be angling for on the next take, or...?”

~

Beca had then proceeded to hastily give Chloe some pointers on how to feed the flames in her argument scene with Stacie, and the redhead was hardly able to get a word in edgewise because Beca kept talking over her and making any eye contact between them brief and fleeting.

The scene went off without any hitch, and Chloe, having fixed her hair and make up as best as she could following the tears and general disarray that the hair pulling component of the scene caused, excitedly scurried off to find Beca.

She spotted the young scene coach and her bright eyes locked on her target as she eagerly strode in her direction...

... only to have Aubrey block her path.

“I forbid it.”

From the corner of her eye, Chloe saw Beca alerted to Chloe’s presence by Aubrey’s shrill voice. The small brunette jumped in seeming panic and quickly hurried away from the duo. The redhead deflated at this.

“Aubrey, can this wait? I’m gonna lose her!” Chloe muttered out, biting her lip and trying to sidestep the tall blonde.

“That is _exactly_ my goal, and no, this certainly cannot wait,” Aubrey haughtily proclaimed, arms akimbo. “Chloe, I’m trying to keep you from making a gargantuan mistake. Beca is an emotional train wreck waiting to happen.”

That caught Chloe’s attention, and the usually bubbly redhead furrowed her brow at the presumptuous tone lining Aubrey’s words. “Um, excuse me, but how could you possibly know enough about her to think you can pass judgment on her?”

“Chloe, hon, you’re usually not in the loop because you’re too sweet to join us in our gossip circles, but there’s something you should know about your dear soulmate—she’s _fucking_ the bachelor,” Aubrey putridly bit out through gnashing teeth.

Aubrey never cursed. She was so prim and proper, she’d much sooner gargle soap water than allow any profanity to escape her lips.

She therefore had to have felt VERY strongly about Beca to utter this.

“It’s a violation of her contract—no workplace romance outside of the cast, as directed—and not to mention, morally disgusting,” Aubrey huffed out with pursed lips and arms folded.

Chloe felt sick. She was so happy to finally meet her soulmate, and now she finds out that apparently she’s taken? But now that Chloe had made her prophesied appearance, Beca should have no problem with dumping the temporary side distraction, right? After all, her one true love had finally entered the picture!

“Jesse already has like 12 girls vying for his attention, why does he have to take my soulmate, too?” Chloe grumbled out sulkily.

“Chloe, you’re missing the point here,” Aubrey said comfortingly, placing a gentle palm on the redhead’s shoulder. “Beca is a rotten, poisoned, forbidden fruit. Stay as far away from her as humanly possible and her disastrous influence shouldn’t mess up your life. You are _good_ , Chloe, and you deserve better than that hussy dragging you down.”

~

Beca was following Aubrey’s advice much better than Chloe, the actual recipient of said advice, was.

Chloe ignored Aubrey’s words of wisdom and decided to charge forward and confront Beca.

Beca hadn’t made it easy for her, though.

Attempts made by Chloe to talk to Beca were expertly dodged by the brunette, who conveniently had “meetings” to go to, or “someone” in desperate need of coaching, or “some errand” to run outside of filming location, all of which only culminated in an unproductive week of frustration for Chloe.

Eventually, Chloe wised up and figured that if Beca would keep running from her, then Chloe just had to get Beca to start running to her instead.

Exhibit A: Scene where Chloe is supposed to engage in girl talk with the remaining contestants and gush over Jesse? Act suuuuper bored and don’t participate in the conversation.

Cue Beca sent to reluctantly coach her in what kind of feedback to throw into the conversation to contribute to the girl chat.

Exhibit B: Scene where Chloe is supposed to enjoy a bashful dinner with Jesse and and demurely chuckle and encourage his jokes? Totally hijack the dialogue, annoyingly laugh loudly, insert her own inappropriate jokes, and pretend to get drunk on wine.

Cue Beca sent to begrudgingly coach her in how to be a proper lady that can crack decent jokes with a charming personality.

Exhibit C: Scene where Chloe is supposed to console Aubrey and encourage her not to give up on her romantic goals after an atrociously embarrassing family-meet date with Jesse? Act outrageously offended that Jesse didn’t appreciate Aubrey’s humble familial origins and incite her blonde friend to the belief that there are better men out there for her than stupid Jesse.

Cue Beca sent to suspiciously coach Chloe in how to be a sensitive, supportive friend without directing Aubrey away from the main character of the reality TV show, and to tone down her manipulative vibes because she’s not under a villain role for this episode.

And so on and so forth until Beca herself became fed up and confronted Chloe herself behind the scenes after the latest take wrapped up.

She led her to a secluded corner away from the hustle and bustle of the cast and crew.

“Do you WANT to get eliminated?” Beca snapped out moodily, frowning and trying to read the redhead. “What game are you playing at here, exactly?”

“Isn’t this whole spectacle a game show?” Chloe asked with a knowing grin.

“No need to play dumb, Beale, the cameras aren’t rolling,” Beca said sharply, eyes still defyingly locked with Chloe’s. “Now are you planning to tell me where you get off having me at your beck and call by purposefully messing up your scenes? You were a model contestant and I hardly had to deal with you before the whole... before that... before you-know-what happened.” Beca sighed. “Look, I’m not even meant to tell you this, but we had you slated to be one of the top three finalists to become Jesse’s winning girl. But with the way you’ve been acting, you’re quickly falling out of favor and slipping down the ranks—“

“Are you counting yourself in that number?” Chloe interrupted neutrally, staring at Beca challengingly, raising her eyebrow.

Beca blinked and scowled. “What number? What are you talking about—agh, anyway, back to what I was say—“

“The top three. Are you counting yourself in that number?” Chloe asked firmly, lips rigidly set in a line.

Beca looked caught off guard, but she quickly recovered and sputtered our, “W-what are you even saying? What you’re implying doesn’t make any sense whatsoever! Now stop being unprofessional or I’m gonna write you a negative evaluation and you won’t be getting a rose next ep—“

“Beca, I know about you and Jesse.”

If this was the first and last time Beca was going to deign to talk to her, Chloe figured she wouldn’t have another opportunity to speak frankly with her, so she might as well come in guns blazing and lay it all out there like the unfolding of an ugly rug.

Beca was gaping at her, eyes wide, still and stupefied.

“Last time I saw this expression on you, you’d just found out we were soulmates,” Chloe murmured fondly, extending her arm and tenderly raising Beca’s jaw closed by placing the back of her thumb underneath the brunette’s chin. Her bright cerulean blue became stormy. “I’m a little miffed to see that mention of Jesse can provoke the same reaction from you.”

Beca inwardly came to a decision and swallowed before venturing, “How do you know about this?”

“Aubrey.”

“Fucking knew it,” hissed out Beca bitterly. “Soulmates are relentless.”

Chloe blinked, puzzled.

Beca sighed. “Aubrey and Jesse are soulmates. Jesse and I kind of had—well, still have—a thing before the two of them met. Jesse didn’t bother getting to know Aubrey past their initial meeting because he didn’t want to let go of what was happening between us. Aubrey’s thought of me as a nefarious home wrecker since then. He sacrificed what he could possibly have with his soulmate in order to be with me so I figured... I should extend him the same courtesy.”

“Oh.” Chloe was the one left speechless now. “Wow. Um. Well. She hadn’t mentioned that.”

“Of course she wouldn’t, because then she’d come off like a bitter loser and it would shine me in a sympathetic light,” Beca grumbled out with a huff. “This is probably the most complicated Bachelor season to date. Obviously, we can’t reveal any soulmate dynamics going on behind the scenes because that would ruin the storylines and fantasies we’re trying to portray.”

“How would soulmates complicate the picture? If anything, that’s more drama fodder right there,” Chloe opinionated curiously.

“ _Because_ ,” Beca enunciated pointedly. “The way our society worships soulmate relationships, as soon as the audience finds out who the Bachelor’s soulmate is, they’ll be rooting for her and the other girls won’t stand a chance. At that point, the show is reduced to any other adult drama where the two main characters overcome obstacles, or in this case inconsequential contestants, to be with each other. That’s not reality TV, then, that’s just a scripted soap opera.”

“I see,” Chloe said slowly, thoughtfully. “So it would be really bad if the public found out about soulmates in the cast, huh?”

“Exactly,” Beca said, sounding relieved at making the redhead understand.

“Any type of leak of soulmates through the paparazzi or, I don’t know, a cast member’s social media, would be disastrous to the season, right?”

“... uh-huh,” Beca responded warily.

“Like... official twitter or Facebook or Instagram account type of announcement, yeah?”

“Chloe. No. What are you thinking of”—Chloe pulls out her phone—“Put that thing away or I’m going to get the suits to end your contract!”

“If I post this, I’m getting fired anyway, so I don’t need your intervention to get that to happen,” Chloe reminded cheerfully, a dark glint in her eyes.

That was the look of a crazed madwoman with nothing to lose.

Beca was, for the third time, gaping in shock at something Chloe had said.

“You just said you’re still with Jesse out of loyalty because he cast aside his soulmate for you, which leads me to believe that if it weren’t for that, you might’ve given me more than a sparing glance,” Chloe rationalizes, unlocking her phone and placing it underneath her bottom lip in affected thought.

Beca blinked, scandalized. “You’re... dude, you’re insane! What do you want from me?”

“Just you,” Chloe said sincerely, with a gentle smile. “But if I got the blackmailing upper hand, I might as well add in, I want Aubrey to win. Soulmates should be together.”

  
“I don’t get to decide who wins!” Beca cried out in a whining tone.

“But you do have a lot of pull with the suits, don’t you? You just told me I was set to be top three, no mindless grunt is privy to that kind of knowledge unless they’re close to the execs,” Chloe reasoned out cleverly. “Input from the scene coach, who personally interacts with the contestants, would be reaaaally important to them, don’t you think?”

Beca narrowed her eyes. “I had you pegged all wrong, Chloe. You should’ve been cast as a villain. You bring a whole new twisted spin to the role.”

Chloe feigned a deep inhale and an impatient tap to her foot, looking around her as if she were impatiently waiting on Beca to make a decision. “I’m going to stand here until you agree to my terms.”

Beca seethed grudgingly.

Chloe started to check her phone notifications idly and whistled to pass the time, further irritating Beca.

The short brunette stomped closer to Chloe, rudely lowered the girl’s phone so they could make eye contact, and spat out bitterly, “Deal.”

Chloe smiled genuinely.

If Beca’s as rotten as Aubrey made her out to be, it only follows that Chloe would be just as bad.

Otherwise, how else would they be soulmates?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't seem to stop writing long one-shots... I hope you liked this one! I am a sucker for Bachelor AU's where Character A doesn't want The Bachelor anymore 'cause they fell in love with Character B, but they must still compete because contracts <3! The angst potential is just UNF!
> 
> Also, if you enjoy my fanfiction, please consider donating a bit to a starving artist and college student (double the starving :'D)!
> 
> http://ko-fi.com/omniessence


	4. Burner Phone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Latest Chapter's Story: 
> 
> Beca glared at the phone number scripted on her skin.
> 
> She'd never seriously considered giving it a call.
> 
> Now, as she's running late to her first day at her music internship, the universe is clearly saying, "hold my beer," as it sets the pieces into motion.
> 
> Soulmate AU where you are born with the first words your soulmate will say to you tattoed on your skin.

Beca was running late as a missed freaking period.

 

On the first day of her internship, no less.

 

 _Cliches are cliches for a reason_ , Beca thought disgruntledly as she willed her accursedly short legs to move faster.

 

Beca was the winner of the much coveted “2012 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation” internship in Music. She was in her senior year of undergraduate school pursuing a degree in Music Composition and Technology and this award granted her the opportunity of in-depth exposure to professional television production during an eight-week, paid summer period in Los Angeles.

 

And here she was, the honorary recipient of said prestigious award, late and, as she just now was coming to realize, lost as an abandoned orphan.

 

She was more familiar with Atlanta than she was with L.A. It was her first time in the west coast city.

 

 _GPS, why do you fail me now?_ Beca despaired, distressed and frantically refreshing her smart phone’s Google Maps to see if it would recalculate her path. She noticed the one bar reading on the top left of her screen.  _Damn you, AT &T._

 

She closed her eyes, palm-slapped her forehead, and shook her head in frustration before peeling her eyes open again and glaring at the tattoo on her forearm that’s been taunting her since 1991 (a.k.a. when she was born).

 

She let her forehead go and narrowed her eyes at the biologically inked script.

 

She mentally plucked petals.  _I should. I shouldn’t. I should. I shouldn’t. I should. I shouldn’t._

 

Her indecision ran so long that she wasn’t even sure what plant species she was imagining anymore given the amount of petals she was equipping the darned thing with.

 

She looked at the time on her phone. _Shit, I’ll deal with the consequences later. This is my last shot._

 

She pulled her phone out, dialed in a number, and brusquely brought the device up to her ear, tapping her foot impatiently as she heard the tell tale noise of a call going out.

 

 _Figures_ , Beca thought with an incredulous scoff. _No data for Google Maps but just enough service to push a call through. I see what you did there, Fate._

 

“Property of Chloe. If lost, contact me at (555)-417-6688.”

 

“I need a ride,  _please_  tell me you’re near wherever Hollywood Universal Studios is?” Beca asked reluctantly.

 

“Are you  _kidding_  me?” Chloe asked excitedly. “That’s only, like, the  _second_  most important place I learned how to get to after first learning how to get to and out of my mom’s vaginal exit, and  _before_  even learning how to make my way back home!”

 

“DUDE, ewww, what? Ewww!” Beca expressed, startled and grossed out by the mental imagery. Blocks, however, were falling into place. “We’ve only spoken for 5 seconds, but I can so see how someone like you would give me this kind of tattoo.”

 

“It’s just an expression!” Chloe laughed giddily on the other line. “I’m just glad you found your way back to me.”

 

“Back to you? We just met,” Beca explained, weirded out.

 

“No, silly,” Chloe negated good-naturedly. “Soulmates are halves of a whole. You’ve been my missing half all these years, and now that you’re back, I’m complete.”

 

“... okay, no, first of all, beautiful heart-melting lines like that aren’t gonna undo all the years of teasing I had to endure because of you! ‘Property of Chloe?’ You labeled me like some Barbie doll! You might as well have put ‘Made in China’ while you were at it!”

 

“Actually, I thought about saying ‘Made with love’ since I didn’t know where you would’ve been born—“

 

“DON’T interrupt my cathartic diatribe, you  _owe_  me this!” Beca cried, pathetically flustered.

 

There was silence on the phone.

 

Beca frowned. “Hello?”

 

“Oh! Still here. I was nodding, but I just realized you probably couldn’t see that,” Chloe excused herself with an endearing chuckle. “Please go on.”

 

Beca didn’t need any more prompting.

 

“Did you know the other kids saw my tattoo and gave me an embarrassing nickname in grade school that stuck through to the end of high school? Barbie Beca!”

 

“... Cute name,” Chloe murmured fondly.

 

“No, not cute, trauma-inducing, yes!” the short brunette griped, pacing in a huff.

 

“No, I meant ‘Beca,’ your actual name,” Chloe explained affectionately, sounding distant in awe. “I just... given what I first said to you, you’ve probably known your whole life what my name is.”

 

“And stayed away from every identifiable Chloe within meeting distance,” Beca added pointedly, nodding to herself.

 

Beca could imagine Chloe rolling her eyes indulgently over the line. “Anyway... I’ve always wondered what your name would be...  _Beca_ , I love it.”

 

“Oh.” Beca was caught off-guard. Maybe if they had met under different circumstances, and Chloe wasn’t her soulmate, then Beca wouldn’t be so adamantly opposed to getting to know the girl. “Uh, thanks, I guess.” Beca shook herself out of her momentary stupor. “But more to the point. How did you know it was going to be me that called you when you answered?”

 

“Oh, that’s because you’re the only one that would have ever had this number,” Chloe piped up helpfully.

 

“... Do you have like a whole second phone just for me or something?” Beca asked, horrified and creeped out. “Have you been waiting for me to call that number all these years?”

 

Depending on the girl’s answer, Beca may or may not just say ‘screw getting to the internship on time!’ and hang up.

 

Chloe laughed. Beca imagined an evil cackle at her nefarious plans falling into place. “Nooooo, as if I had the money to pay for two different devices in my plan!”

 

 _So if she had the money..._ Beca thought, appalled.

 

“It was pretty simple, actually! I downloaded a ‘burner phone’ app and created disposable alias number. Your soulmate tattoo sounded like something someone unfamiliar with the area would say over the phone. I mean, it would’ve been possible that you might’ve stopped me, a stranger on the road, and asked me to give you a ride but let’s be honest, this is L.A., if someone stuck their head to a window, they’d sooner get pepper sprayed than given a ride.” Beca could imagine Chloe shrugging with a guilty smile. “At times, I wondered if I would part time as an Uber or taxi driver, but eventually I got tired of sitting around speculating and decided to take matters into my own hands. After all, who said you had to be the one to speak first? I wasn’t sure if you were a girl or a boy, but I’m a firm believer in women being allowed to take the initiative! And so I came up with the phrase I would tell you, made sure only you’d have my burner number, parked near Universal Studios—to help the stars align—and sure enough! Here you are!”

 

Beca blinked, dumbfounded. Her soulmate was actually a very clever girl. To her dismay, she found this conflictingly attractive.

 

 _Match made in the stars, huh?_ Beca mused wryly, recalling the poetic phrase quoted in many soulmate theory books she had to buy for history class.

 

“How about you?” Chloe followed up, having heard no forthcoming comments from Beca. “How many times did you try calling my number before today?”

 

“Uh... never,” Beca answered bluntly.

 

“I really doubt that,” Chloe accused with playful incredulity.

 

Beca sighed in reluctant defeat. “Fine. Maybe like 5 times in my entire life. But none of those calls were mine! My parents, obviously, were the first to try the number because they didn’t want me talking to strangers when I was little; turned out the number didn’t exist. Some of my friends in middle and high school just wanted to be a pain in my ass so they memorized the number and called without me knowing, only to fess up later and tell me the number still didn’t exist. Although, there was this one time a friend told me some creepy dude on house arrest answered the call, but didn’t say your words, and ever since then I basically resolved to never call that number, not that I ever planned to.”

 

“Until today,” Chloe reminded teasingly.

 

“Because you did some weird ritualistic soulmate voo doo or whatever and basically left me with no choice but to use you as my last resort!” Beca reminded frantically. “Don’t I have free will? How long were you planning this for anyway?”

 

“Hmm, let’s see, I only created this burner number about two weeks ago,” Chloe explained, sounding distant as she searched her memory. “But I got restless and wasn’t sure if you’d ever give me a call so I tried reading your first words to me as a clue to see if there was some way for me to speed up our encounter. You mentioned Universal Studios, so I drove there and waited to see if something happened, aaaand it did!”

 

“So let me get this straight... you’re saying it’s basically your fault that I’m late to the first day of my internship at Universal Studios today?” Beca asked pointedly, eye semi-twitching.

 

“Um...” Chloe gulped. “H-heeeey, how long have we been on the phone anyway? Wow, it feels like we’ve talked a lot... Hmmm, yup, been close to 10 minutes, says it right here! Didn’t you need me to give you a ride somewhere?”

 

“SHIT! Universal Studios! I got less than 15 minutes to get there now!” Beca exclaimed, panicked. “Yes, please, hurry up—and don’t think I’ve forgotten I’m mad at you, we’re soooo gonna come back to this later—I’m wearing brown ankle high boots, blue jeans, green—“

 

“—top, denim jacket, and red scarf?” Chloe finished knowingly.

 

“Ye...ah... how—?”

 

“Just my type. Universe sure knows how to pick ‘em,” Chloe preened.

 

“How did you—? Where are you even—? Dude, have you been watching me this whole time!? Wrong answer and I am  _not_  getting in your car. I’ll take my chances walking, thanks.”

 

Chloe pulled up right behind Beca, then rolled down her window and called out loudly, “You have to stop thinking I’m some kind of obsessive psycho stalker. It hurts my feelings.”

 

Beca jumped and dropped her phone—“Jesus!”—bent to retrieve it and turned around to stare warily at Chloe.

 

Chloe rolled her eyes affectionately at the short girl’s untrusting gaze. “I’ve been driving around the block trying to find you because I wanted to make sure I gave you a ride in time. Not too difficult given you were the only girl pacing impatiently the whole time you were talking. I figured it was you after I put you on speaker and your words matched your lips and gestures. Traffic in L.A. is hellish and you definitely don’t wanna walk the Universal Studios parking lot— _massive_. I know the shortcuts. Sooooo, whaddayasay? you getting in, Ms. Soulmate?”

 

“Just so we’re clear, your sleuthing skills border on creepy and this is yet another thing we will talk about later but for right now just...” Beca opened the door, sat grumpily in the passenger seat, and sighed.

 

“Just...?” Chloe prompted gleefully.

 

“Shut up and drive.”

 

“Ooooh, good call!”

 

"One I wish I hadn't made..." lamented Beca.

 

And Chloe selected _Shut Up And Drive_  by Rihanna on her iPod and blasted it through the speakers as she put her foot to the gas pedal.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, I wrote one short, sweet, and simple one-shot! This was originally about the length I had anticipated for all my soulmate one-shots but now I just let the muse take over and let the stories write themselves. I am merely the medium through which they flow! I hope you enjoyed this one! I'm sure you can tell by now I love messing with causality xD! 
> 
> I was actually 1/3 of the way through the next story, but then this little "telephone" concept came to my head and I just had to write it down. I think you're going to love the next story, though. I'm excited to share it with you all!
> 
> Thank you very much to everyone that has donated and left encouraging comments telling me they like the stories! I've been having a rough couple of days with my college courses; I just feel really stupid because everyone seems to do well except for me. Your comments make my day and make me feel like I'm at least good at something.
> 
> If you enjoy my fanfiction, please consider donating a bit to a starving artist and college student (double the starving :'D)!
> 
> http://ko-fi.com/omniessence


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